Individualism
and relativism in today’s culture
On Monday 18th April 2005, Cardinal Ratzinger, as Dean of the College of Cardinals, delivered the homily for the Mass “Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice.” He indicated to the gathered Cardinals the challenge that the next Pope would have to address with the truth of Jesus Christ. The great challenge today is that of relativism:
“Today, having a clear
faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism.
Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there,
carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can
cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does
not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of
one's own ego and desires.”
Relativism and individualism are consequences of man losing his most fundamental orientation. Thinking and living as if God were absent, irrelevant, useless or ‘dead,’ man has broken the tablets of the Decalogue which he now perceives as childish, outdated and superstitious moral precepts. He perceives science as the only solid food that will permit him to grow into maturity or adulthood, with his destiny, and that of the whole world, in his own hands. The true and the good have been superseded by the coldness of the feasible. With his fundamental orientation no longer directed towards heaven, man today finds himself turned in on his own self. Thus individualism and relativism feed each other and become a vortex dragging the dignity of the human person down into the most ancient of slaveries, that of being a prisoner of the “I”.
The opposing ideologies of the last century at least were contrasted and held in check by each other, if not through actual conflict at least by a type of ‘cold’ war. The movement towards the globalisation of contemporary cultures gives rise to an even greater danger - the risk of a global dictatorship of relativism. The absolutisation of the right of the individual gives rise to values and morals of society being adjusted to the lowest common denominator tolerated by the will or apathy of the majority. As an example, it is enough to look at the situation of the unborn child in this globalisation of the culture of the individual within a pregnancy. The rights of adults are now almost globally placed above the rights of the most vulnerable in our world, the child in the womb. Stem cell research using human embryos is now the new frontier where the global dictatorship of relativism is being played out.
Individualism and relativism as the measures of life are endangering humanity with the creation of a global culture of death.
In the same homily quoted above, Pope Benedict, still as Cardinal, also indicated the way out of this situation. It is the same way that has led humanity out of dark situations in the past:
“We, however, have a
different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true
humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of
fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in
friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is
good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false,
and deceit from truth.”